We Keep This Love in a Photograph
by thisfairytalegonebad
Summary: Krolia realizes she doesn't have any photos of Keith as a child, which is really not acceptable.


**Written for day 6 of Keith's Genuary event on Tumblr. Enjoy!**

* * *

For the past twenty-four hours, Krolia had been hovering at Keith's bedside even after he'd woken up from unconsciousness. He'd tolerated it longer than she had expected, but then the paladins had received permission to move all into one big room together on condition that they remained in bed until the doctors cleared them, and Keith had firmly ordered Krolia to get some sleep herself, eat something, and maybe have a shower too. She bristled at the thought of leaving him alone, injured and vulnerable, but she reminded herself that he wasn't alone at all. The other paladins, Keith's family, they were all there, and they were all safe.

After her shower, she hadn't quite had the energy to eat anymore as the exhaustion finally caught up with her, so she decided to look for something edible around the Garrison kitchen after she'd slept. And now that she was awake, she ignored the dull pangs in her stomach once again in favour of returning to Keith's side, figuring she could always get some food after she'd checked up on Keith.

In quick strides, she made her way to the medical wing of the Garrison, only slowing down when she reached the Paladins' door. Her hand was already on the doorknob when she stopped, listening closely to the voices inside.

They were talking animatedly, laughing, and even Keith's voice was mixed into the conversation. He sounded so relaxed and at ease that Krolia didn't have the heart to impose just yet. Her hand fell from the doorknob and she stepped back, giving the door one last glance before she turned around and headed for the kitchen instead.

When she opened the door to the kitchen roughly, three heads turned to stare at her, and all she did was to blink back in surprise before one of them spoke up.

"Krolia," Colleen Holt, the Green Paladin and the rebel boy's mother, smiled at her kindly, the corners of her eyes wrinkling with both age and mirth.

Krolia nodded at her, briefly making eye contact with the three women seated at the table before she walked over to where the food was stored, intending to grab the first thing she saw and go eat somewhere else, but Colleen interrupted her as she opened the cabinet.

"We were just going to eat, do you want to join?"

"I cooked," one of the other two women, Hunk's mother said proudly, smiling widely at Krolia. "I can't cook quite as well as I used to, with the limited ingredients, but I've been told it's still tasty!"

Krolia pulled her hand back from the cabinet, her eyes flicking from each of the women to the large pot in the middle of the table, and to one of the free chairs. She didn't say anything, considering the pros and the cons of eating with the other mothers. The food smelt heavenly, and if the Yellow Paladin's mother cooked as well as her son did, Krolia'd have loved to try it. Then again, she had never spoken to the other women before, save for a few pleasantries she had exchanged with Colleen, and she wasn't sure if they wouldn't mind having her at the table. Besides, there was still the fact that she was part of a race that had invaded their home planet; Hunk's mother had been among the ones the Empire had enslaved. Surely, she couldn't agree with Krolia joining her for _lunch_.

Before Krolia could decline, Lance's mother was out of her seat and steered her towards the free chair she had been eyeing earlier. "Sit," she told her, "I'll get you a plate."

"Thank you," Krolia replied quietly as the woman filled her plate with the steaming food and placed it in front of her.

The food really tasted as good as it smelt, and Krolia found herself nearly groaning in pleasure as she ate the first spoonful. She'd been hungrier than she had realized, and the warm food soothed the ache in her stomach from going so long without anything to eat.

"I've had the honour of tasting your son's cooking," she said, directing her eyes at the Yellow Paladin's mother, "I see now where he learnt."

"Oh," the Yellow Paladin's mother gasped, giggling bashfully. "Thank you so much!"

Krolia's lips twitched into a small smile, and she went back to her food. Much like Keith, she was content listening to the other women talking during the meal without contributing anything herself, and the other three didn't seem to mind.

The women talked a lot, about everything and nothing, and while Krolia didn't mind at all, she found it hard to keep up. Even by Galra standards, she wasn't exactly sociable, and so she had very little experience with conversations so lively and animated. Without meaning to, she zoned out, the chattering nothing more than a background noise now, but she tuned back in when Lance's mother pulled out a piece of paper and showed it around.

On it was the Blue Paladin himself, but he was very young in the picture, beaming up at the camera with a few gaps between his teeth.

"This was Lance on his first day of school, he was so excited," Lance's mother explained proudly. "He wouldn't stop talking when he got home, and he couldn't wait to go back the next day!"

Colleen pulled out two separate photos of her own, passing them around the table. "This is Matt and Katie on their first days. Both declared school was boring after the first day, and I think Katie was offended that she didn't get to solve the same math problems as Matt just yet."

Encouraged, the three mothers began pulling out what appeared to be entire collections of photographs, and to each picture, they had a story to go with it.

Krolia smiled softly at the photos. They were wrinkled and a bit torn at the edges, testament to how well-loved they were, taken out and looked at countless times. There were many happy moments captured in the photos; Hunk's first attempt at cooking, Lance playing with his siblings and later with his younger relatives, Pidge and Matt causing a minor explosion in their parents' house. Lance again, making sculptures at a beach - a sandcastle, his mother called it, though it did not look much like a castle to Krolia - and the Holt siblings playing with their pet dog. Hunk sitting on his father's shoulders and laughing without a care in the world. Lance when he had received the letter that accepted him into the Galaxy Garrison.

As sweet as the pictures were, Krolia felt a heaviness settle inside her stomach as she remembered the only picture of Keith she had once had. She had lost it on a mission, or it had been taken away, rather, on a mission gone wrong that had ended with her being captured and stripped of her Blade suit. Once she had retrieved her suit, she had searched it thoroughly, four, five, six times, but no avail; the photograph was gone.

Keith had been tiny in it, only a few weeks old at the time. His size had always astonished her, even for an infant he had seemed way too small and fragile to her. It was normal for humans to be that small, Keith's father had explained, but something about it still frightened her; the world was much too dangerous for a creature so tiny and vulnerable.

Many times, she had wished to possess another picture of her son, to know if he looked anything like his father and if he still was so worryingly small.

(Imagine her joy when she had met him nearly eighteen years later and learnt that he looked like a human copy of herself, and her amusement upon seeing that he was still rather small, even for a human)

"What about you, Krolia?" Colleen's voice shook her out of her thoughts. "Got any pictures of Keith?"

Abruptly, Krolia stood, nearly pushing her chair over. "No. Excuse me."

She collected her plate from the table and set it into the sink stiffly before she turned on her heel and made her way towards the door in a hurry, only remembering to mutter, "Thank you for the food," quickly before she left the room, shutting the door behind her with a little more force than necessary.

Her feet led her up to the Garrison roof where she sat down heavily, gazing across the desert with a heavy heart.

Of course it bothered her that she didn't have any adorable pictures of Keith as a child, but it wasn't just the pictures. Rather, the fact that she didn't have the memories of the moments behind the pictures either was what made her heart ache.

Barely a year after Keith's birth, she had left him, knowing fully well that she would never see him again. Their reunion should never have been, with how incredibly big the universe was and how little of it the humans had been able to reach. The chances of them meeting again had been vanishingly small, and yet, she was granted another chance with her son.

She should have been happy about that second chance, and she was , she was overjoyed to have Keith back with her, to have been able to spend time with him and to witness how much he had grown, physically and mentally. She was happy about the present, and yet she mourned the past, desperately wishing to relive it, to do things differently.

In the quantum abyss, seeing that Keith had been forced to grow up all on his own after his father had been taken from him way too soon, she had thought her heart was going to crack right in half. She could have changed his fate, could have given him the chance to grow up with a mother who loved and cherished him, instead of forcing him to be passed between foster homes without anyone he could get close enough to to actually trust. Leaving had seemed like the best choice back then, as she had been convinced that he would be in good care with his father and that her presence would only put her in danger, but she knew now that for the rest of her life, she would regret the decision she had made.

"Krolia?" a voice said behind her.

Krolia shot up, nearly attacking whoever was sneaking up on her until she realized who it was.

"Colleen," Krolia said, her voice carefully neutral. "How did you find me?"

"I've seen you come up here a few times already," Colleen replied easily, her expression still kind even though Krolia had just almost stabbed her. Or maybe she didn't know Krolia had been about to stab her, in which case it was better not to mention it. "May I sit?"

"Yes."

"I'm sorry about before. I didn't mean to put you on the spot."

Curiously, Krolia turned her head a little to glance at Colleen. "Why?"

It wasn't Colleen's fault Krolia had abandoned her own son after all, and Krolia was fairly sure she didn't even know about her and Keith's situation, so why was she apologizing?

"I noticed you were spacing out when we were looking at the photos and I didn't want you to feel excluded, but I should have realized it was… a touchy subject for you," Colleen told her sincerely.

"No!" Krolia said quickly, and then she winced at how harsh it had come out. "No, it is not… You didn't know."

"I didn't," Colleen agreed, "but I knew there was something different between you and Keith compared to other parents with their children. Not bad, just different."

Krolia was silent for a long minute. Different. It was to be expected, really, there were many factors that played into it too. Aside from her being very visibly an alien from the humans' point of view, there was their separation of eighteen years, and the fact that both her and Keith were rather bad at social interactions probably didn't help create a different image of the relationship between them.

She glanced at Colleen from the corners of her eyes again. Colleen wasn't pushing for any more information. She was simply sitting there, gazing into the desert in silence much like Krolia. And perhaps that was the reason why Krolia decided to tell her.

"I left him," she said softly, the words sending a shudder down her spine. "When he was an infant, I left him with his father. I did it to protect him, and because I had a mission. I thought him safe, but…"

Colleen was looking at her now, kind and understanding.

Krolia took a deep breath. "His father died only a few years later when Keith was still very young. He had no one left, and I… I could have been there. But I was not."

Saying it out loud ached in a whole new way in her chest, simultaneously worse and less painful than usual. It felt more real now that she had finally spoken the words, but the comfort of sharing this burden lessened the pain considerably.

Krolia fell silent, and for a while, neither of them spoke.

"You did what you thought was best for him though, didn't you?" Colleen said at last, gentle like Krolia hadn't just told her she had abandoned her own child. "You couldn't have known how everything was going to turn out."

Krolia shook her head. "I should never have left him."

Colleen moved, reaching out with her left hand to rest it atop of Krolia's. "Sam and Matt were on the Kerberos mission, the same mission Shiro was on."

Krolia blinked. She knew of the Kerberos mission, had seen it in the quantum abyss; Keith's devastation when Shiro didn't come back, the only person he trusted. They had talked about it then, all night long, with Keith shaking with emotion where he had been curled up between her and the wolf puppy they had found, but she hadn't known that Colleen's family had been on that mission as well.

"Before they even agreed to be on the mission, Sam asked me for permission. I could have said no, and both he and Matt would have stayed. But I didn't say no, of course. It would have been selfish, to take that opportunity from them just because I couldn't handle some time without them," Colleen continued solemnly. "But then they disappeared, were declared dead. Not much later, Katie vanished as well."

When she and the other Paladins of Voltron had flown to space in the Blue Lion. Krolia knew that story, not from the glimpses into the past but from Keith's own recounting of the tale. She had found it amusing then, but now all she could think of was the anguish Colleen Holt must have felt after her entire family had disappeared in space, with no hope of ever getting them back.

"I regretted allowing them to go," Colleen admitted softly, "I know they would have stayed, and my family wouldn't have been taken from me. Every day, I stared up at the sky and cursed the universe for doing that to me. But even more, I cursed myself for allowing it to happen. But… just like you, I thought it was the best decision to let them go, back then. And now, the very universe that I cursed every night gave them back, all three of them."

"You are very strong," Krolia remarked quietly but honestly. She might have been a trained spy and assassin herself, with strength extraordinary even for a Galra, whereas Colleen Holt was thin and fragile, but mentally, she might have been one of the strongest people Krolia had ever met.

"So are you," Colleen retorted, and Krolia knew it wasn't her physical strength she was referring to, even though she currently felt anything but. "I got a second chance with them, all three of them, and so did you. You found Keith again, and while you might not be able to change his or your past, you can be there for him now. Show him how much you love him, and let him love you back. I'm sure if he ever blamed you, he has long since forgiven you. Just be a good mother to him now, that's all you have to do."

Be a good mother to him. Krolia wasn't sure what a good mother was, exactly, with her own recollection of her parents being fuzzy at best as she had grown up in the care of the Blade of Marmora, trained to be an assassin even as a child. But what she knew with certainty was that she loved Keith fiercely, more than anything in the world, and by the ancients, she would do anything in her power to act upon her love.

"I can do that," she decided, a tiny smile appearing on her lips.

"I knew you could," Colleen told her, squeezing her hand before she let go and pushed herself to her feet with a groan. "I'm too old for his," she declared, pressing both hands into her lower back and arching her spine. After her back cracked rather loudly, she straightened, satisfied, and offered Krolia another smile. "Well then, I'll leave you to yourself now. Try not to beat yourself up too much about it."

"Thank you," Krolia said, and she meant it. Not only had the talk helped her, but Colleen had also taken time out of her day to reassure Krolia and listen to her when she needed it, and for that, she was very grateful.

Colleen waved her off as she disappeared back inside, and Krolia was alone on the roof again.

The talk with Colleen had helped a great deal, but Krolia couldn't help but wish she had at least a few pictures of Keith growing up, even if she hadn't been able to witness it herself.

Her eyes widened as realization hit her. _Shiro_.

Shiro wouldn't have pictures of Keith as a small child, she knew, he had only been in Keith's life since his time at the Garrison after all. However, there were still chances that he might have had a photograph of Keith during that time.

Krolia debated. For a moment, she considered walking around until she found Shiro, but that sounded like a lot of trouble. Instead, she activated the comm everyone at the Garrison was wearing at all times and contacted Shiro.

"Krolia?" Shiro's voice sounded from the comm almost immediately. "Did you need something?"

"Yes. But it's better to discuss it in person… if you are free, that is."

"Yeah, no problem. Where do you wanna meet?"

Ten minutes later, Krolia was face to face with a curious Shiro.

"So, what is it you needed? Nothing bad, I hope?"

Krolia's lip curved into a small smile. "No. I was wondering… you and Keith, you were close before the Kerberos mission."

It wasn't a question. Krolia knew how close they were, from what she had seen in the quantum abyss, but also from what Keith had told her. He'd talked about Shiro as they had been sitting around the fire in front of their little hut on the back of that whale, had talked about the whole team with so much fondness, but more often than anyone else's, it had been Shiro's name he had spoken. Of the anguish of the Kerberos failure, of course, but there had been many other tales he had shared as well. Shiro was like an older brother to Keith, a mentor, and someone to lean on when everything got overwhelming. Krolia knew that, not only from the stories but from the way they behaved around each other as well. Keith was more relaxed now, compared to when Krolia had first met him, but she had yet to see him as much at ease anywhere else as he was around Shiro.

It wasn't a question, and Shiro knew it wasn't a question, but he must have thought she was there to talk to him about something completely different than what her actual intention was, for his face fell and the relaxed expression turned into one of guilt and sorrow.

"Yeah…"

"That's in the past now," Krolia told him in a tone that left no room for arguments. "I know what you are thinking, but that's not what I am here for."

Shiro exhaled shakily, still looking troubled, but he didn't argue. "Then what?"

"I was wondering if you would happen to have any photographs. Of Keith, before you left for your mission," Krolia elaborated. "I have… lost the only one I had a long time ago. If you had one to spare, just one, it would be much appreciated."

"Oh," Shiro said, his face brightening. "That's… yeah, actually. Come with me?"

Krolia nodded and followed Shiro to what turned out to be his room. There wasn't much in it. Some clothes, thrown over a chair. A tablet on the desk, a book on the nightstand. A framed photograph of a man she didn't know personally but had caught glimpses of in Keith's past.

She frowned at the picture. The man must've been important if Shiro cared for him enough to keep a photograph of him on display. Yet, she had never seen him at the Garrison even though he was clearly wearing a Garrison uniform in the picture, that must've meant…

Closing her eyes for a second, Krolia mentally recited an ancient Galran prayer for the man, and for Shiro before she turned away respectfully, watching Shiro move around the room instead.

He pulled out a drawer on his desk, rummaging through its contents for a while before he found what he was looking for.

"Keith always hated being in pictures," Shiro told her with a smirk as he handed her a slip of paper, "but even he couldn't deny me one picture before the Kerberos launch at least. Here."

Krolia took the photograph carefully, studying every detail on it. Keith and Shiro were there, standing in front of the spaceship that would eventually take the small crew to Kerberos. Shiro had his arm looped around Keith's shoulders and Keith… Keith was smiling, soft but genuine as he savoured the proximity to Shiro for the last time before his return.

The picture was beautiful.

She stared at it for a few more seconds, her gaze soft, before a thought crossed her mind and she looked up at Shiro. "This is your only picture of him then? Of you two together?"

"Yeah," Shiro said, "Just this one. I had to guilt him into taking it, I was lucky to get even this one."

Krolia shook her head, holding the photo out for Shiro to take back. "Then keep it."

"What? No, you can have it, it's okay. You're his mother, you should have it."

"Keep it," Krolia insisted. "It's yours. I cannot take the only picture you have of the two of you."

Shiro stared at her for a moment, at a loss, but then he laughed. "Alright. We'll make a copy."

"A… copy," Krolia repeated, stunned.

"Yeah. We can duplicate it, come on."

Shiro took her to a room with large electronic devices, none of which she had seen before. They weren't something the humans had in their spaceships, at least.

Curiously, she watched as Shiro lifted the cover of one of the devices and laid the photograph on it face down before he carefully lowered the cover back down and pressed a few buttons.

The device whirred, made a couple of very concerning noises, and then a piece of paper came out.

Tentatively, Krolia reached out, looking at Shiro for confirmation, and took the paper when he nodded at her.

"There, you can keep that one now," Shiro told her, pulling the photo from where he had put it on the device, and- oh. That was what he'd meant by duplicating the photos. She was holding the exact same picture, perfectly copied, she doubted she could have told which one was the original if she had been questioned about it.

"Thank you," she said, holding the picture to her chest gently, her fingers spreading just wide enough to cover it entirely.

Shiro smiled at her. "No problem. You deserve to have a picture of your son, after all."

"I don't know if I deserve it," Krolia admitted. "But I certainly would like to have it."

* * *

Krolia kept the new photo close to herself all the time for the first few days, mainly due to the lack of an alternative location to safely store it, though she did plan to find a place for it eventually, especially considering how she had lost the other one she'd had.

But when Lance, Hunk, and Pidge sought her out one morning, she still had it in her breast pocket, hidden from view, resting right over her heart.

"Hey, Krolia," Lance greeted cheerfully, "What's good?"

"Uh…" Krolia said, arching one eyebrow at the unfamiliar slang. "Hello. Do you need something?"

"Truly Keith's mother," Lance muttered, exasperated, but without any real heat.

Hunk, who was still a bit nervous around Krolia, cut in hastily, "We were just, you know… Shiro said you wanted pictures. Of Keith. And we have some."

"Oh."

"Yeah," Pidge nodded, walking up closer to Krolia and shoving a camera into her face. "Here. There aren't many, Keith was kinda weird about having his picture taken, but we managed to rope him into taking a few selfies with us. Like, three selfies in total, but we figured it's better than nothing."

Krolia's eyes widened before her expression went soft as she flicked through the pictures on the camera.

The first one was of the trio currently standing in front of her, plus Keith. Unlike the three others, he was scowling, looking like he'd rather be somewhere else, but it didn't look like he was struggling much to get out of the half-hug they had going on. Krolia had a feeling he was just putting on a show, pretending to be way more annoyed than he really was.

The second picture featured these three and Keith again, as well as Shiro. This time, Keith looked more docile, and while he wasn't outright smiling, his expression was relaxed and he was leaning into Hunk who had an arm looped around him.

Although the first two pictures were beautiful, the last one was Krolia's favourite. It was a group shot, including the two Alteans, and they looked so much like a family it nearly made Krolia's chest hurt. Keith… Keith looked truly happy there. Like the others, he was looking at the camera, a gentle smile on his face.

Krolia reached up with her other hand that wasn't holding the camera, brushing her thumb over Keith in the picture before she looked up at the three Paladins.

"Thank you. I really appreciate those."

"We're glad!" Hunk told her enthusiastically and gestured for her to follow, which she did. In his excitement, he even seemed to have forgotten to be nervous around her, she noticed with amusement.

Once again, she found herself in front of the large device Shiro had used to duplicate his own picture.

"Are you going to… copy those?" she asked. Copying was what Shiro had called it when they had used the device, at least.

"Copy? Oh! No, that's what you do when you already have something on paper," Pidge explained. "Getting something digital onto paper is called printing."

Ah. Krolia nodded in understanding, standing back to give Pidge more space to operate the device, and to lessen Hunk's anxiety about her presence that once again appeared to have flared up.

"Done," Pidge declared after a minute, handing three photographs to Krolia.

Krolia thanked them again, carefully pushing the photos into her breast pocket where they barely fit. Now, she'd really have to find a place to put those pictures.

* * *

"Oh, Krolia! Would you perhaps be willing to spare a dobosh or two?" Coran asked when she ran into him in the hallway that night.

"Sure," she replied, a bit sceptical. She liked the royal advisor, but he was eccentric and terribly enthusiastic about nearly everything he did, even if his ideas were somewhat questionable at times. Not knowing what he had in mind, she mentally braced herself for anything when she followed him where he lead her.

"Go on, have a seat," he told her, pointing at the table in the middle of the room as he sauntered off to a large bookshelf.

"Ah-ha!" he proclaimed when he found what he'd been looking for, pulling a gigantic book from the shelf that nearly made him topple over when it slid off.

With a thud, he set the book down in front of her, sending a cloud of dust flying at the impact.

"What is that?"

"Oh, I'm glad you asked! You see, there were countless cameras all over the Castle of Lions, for security of course. I looked through all of the recordings and compiled shots of each Paladin, as a personal memento so to speak. Number Five saw and helped me put them all on paper."

"Ah. She printed them," Krolia remembered, running her fingers along the rim of the book.

"Yes, yes, exactly, that's what she called it. I put them all into this book so they were all in the same place. Your son may not have been fond of having his picture taken, but as he wasn't aware of his every move being recorded, he didn't complain. There's a fair share of nice shots I managed to retrieve."

Krolia raised one eyebrow at him, completely unimpressed. That sounded like a breach of privacy… but then, if it gave her more pictures of her child, she was willing to let it go. An entirely different matter, though, was that what seemed like the entire Garrison knew about her trying to find photographs of Keith, which was… somewhat concerning.

Unaware of the look Krolia was giving him, Coran continued. "Go on, have a look."

Flipping the book open, Krolia found each photo glued onto the page and neatly labelled in a script she couldn't read - Ancient Altean, most likely.

The photo album had pictures of Keith in all kinds of situations. Sweaty and exhausted from training, several shots of him during training - those made her chest swell with pride, Keith's fighting stance was near perfect in every single one of them -, one in which he was helping Hunk in the kitchen looking completely clueless, and another one where he was laughing openly at something Hunk said. Keith and Lance bickering, Keith handing tools to Pidge in the workshop, Shiro and Keith hugging. One had Keith and Allura sparring, both very obviously having fun. And one depicted Coran and Keith sitting in the castle's kitchen, a mug in front of either of them, and they appeared to be sitting in companionable silence.

"Ah, that one," Coran said when he noticed she was looking at the picture of Keith and himself. "We were both unable to sleep that night and bumped into each other in the kitchen. Number Four made us a delicious beverage, hot chocolate. Said his father used to make it for him when he had nightmares." Coran was silent for a long moment. "I felt very honoured, being allowed to partake in a tradition he had with his father."

Krolia smiled at the memory of her first hot chocolate. Just like he had apparently done for Keith, Keith's father had made it for her one night during which night terrors tormented her and she thought she would never be able to fall asleep again.

And Keith… Keith must have missed his father a lot, and the sensation Krolia felt was one of intense gratitude towards Coran, for sharing a moment with Keith when he had been in distress. Keith looked tired in the picture, and tense, but he had obviously lowered his guard in front of Coran, something which increased Krolia's respect for Coran even more.

"It is lovely," she said honestly.

Coran cleared his throat and blinked a few times before he declared, "Go ahead, take the ones you like. They shall be yours now."

Krolia shook her head. "You'll keep them. You have become something akin to a father to all of the Paladins, including my son. It would be wrong to take those photos from you, and they wouldn't bring me happiness." She thought for a moment. "But… I have an idea."

And so it happened that two aliens were standing in front of the printer, staring cluelessly at the control pad with the foreign script on them.

Coran had always relied on the castle's built-in translation system that had automatically translated everything, spoken or written. And Krolia, though she knew how to speak the humans' language - or the one they called English at least - had never learnt to read its letters. She hadn't paid close attention to Shiro and Pidge operating it, either, too caught up in the noises it made and the curiosity about the final product, so it was safe to say that she was at a loss.

Just as Coran had started entering random commands, the door opened and Commander Iverson stared at them in utter confusion.

"Greetings, Commander," Coran said cheerily. "You wouldn't happen to know how to operate this machine, by any chance?"

"What… are you doing?"

"Ah, we were trying to duplicate those pictures so we could both have them," Coran elaborated, still pressing buttons experimentally.

"Pictures of… what exactly?" Iverson asked, glancing at the printer curiously.

"My son. Keith."

"Ah, your… son, of course," Iverson agreed, his gaze lingering on her face a little longer than necessary.

Krolia narrowed her eyes at him. She knew most people still had a hard time believing that Keith was part alien, especially part the very alien race that had done so much harm to their home planet, and Keith and Iverson hadn't exactly had the best relationship during Keith's days at the Garrison. However, the Commander had apologized to Keith and they were on friendly terms now, which was why Krolia decided to let it go.

"Well?" she asked instead, " _Can_ you tell us how to do that?"

"...sure."

After Commander Iverson had shown them what button to press in order to copy the pictures, Krolia and Coran managed to operate the machine on their own. The Commander excused himself before he disappeared, but neither of the two paid much attention to him, too engrossed in watching the process of the photos being copied.

Once they were done, Krolia left Coran to his own devices. He was very fascinated by the printer and was trying to copy all sorts of things now, but Krolia had no interest in that.

When she left the room, Commander Iverson was waiting beside the door.

"Here," he said gruffly, holding a single piece of paper out to her. "Your son's identification picture."

Krolia watched him as he left, not even giving her the chance to thank him. He seemed embarrassed, though about what, she could not tell. Either way, she looked down at the picture with a smile.

Another photo of Keith for her collection.

* * *

During her breakfast, Krolia froze with a sudden realization, nearly dropping her spoon into the bowl.

The desert shack.

She and Keith's father had taken more pictures of infant Keith than just the one she had lost, she simply hadn't been able to take more than one with her. If she was lucky, they were still in the shack somewhere. The shack, at least, was still standing, that much she knew. She'd flown out to check, after all. She just had to look if the pictures were still there. And there was a spark of hope in her chest, hope that Keith's father had continued taking pictures even after her departure.

She didn't even finish her breakfast, instead, she pushed her chair back with so much force it nearly toppled over, striding out of the room with determination. She had to visit the shack, right now.

On her way to the ships, someone called out to her.

"Excuse me? Mrs Kogane?"

Apparently, Krolia hadn't been wrong when she'd assumed that the entire Garrison now knew of her desire to collect photographs of Keith, for when she turned around, James Griffin, one of the MFE pilots, approached her with a nervous expression.

"Hey, uh, I heard you were looking for pictures of Keith?" he asked tentatively.

"Call me Krolia. Galra only have one name. And yes, that's true."

Griffin rubbed the back of his neck sheepishly before he handed her a photo. "Okay, Krolia- You can have this, then. It's a class picture, from elementary school. Keith and I were in the same class."

Elementary school. Krolia only remembered bits and pieces of what Keith's father had told her about the local school system, but elementary school was for rather young children. A glance at the picture confirmed it; this was the youngest Keith was in any picture she had as of now.

"Thank you, Griffin. Were you friends?"

Griffin coughed awkwardly. "Not… exactly. We were just classmates, didn't talk to each other much. And then, at the Garrison, we didn't really get along anymore."

That sparked Krolia's interest, but Griffin seemed to genuinely regret how their relationship had progressed, and so she thought it better not to ask. Yet, she couldn't help but wish they _had_ been friends, for of what she'd learnt, Keith had always had trouble making friends, even when his father had still been alive. It would have been nice if he'd had a friend.

"Anyway," Griffin continued, "I gotta go now. Uh, have a nice day."

Krolia put all the pictures she got up in her and Kolivan's ship, but since she wasn't on her way to the ship right now, she pocketed the photo for the moment. Kolivan probably hadn't seen all the photos she had taped to the walls yet, and she was just waiting for him to notice them. He wouldn't tell her to take them down, she knew, but his reaction would still be interesting.

Smiling to herself, she continued her way to the smaller jets, the ones that weren't being used in space.

"Krolia?"

Krolia turned around. "Keith. What are you doing? You're not on your way to training, I hope."

Keith, along with the other Paladins, had received permission to get out of bed and do some light exercise as long as he didn't overdo it, and training would definitely count as overdoing it. He looked nearly back to normal, but upon closer inspection, Krolia noticed he was still a few shades paler than normal and the bruises hadn't quite faded yet. The bandages were no longer around his head and the wounds had scabbed over, still visible but clearly healing well.

Stepping closer, Krolia lifted her hand to Keith's face to brush his bangs out of his eyes, but they fell right back to where they were. Keith leaned into the touch, his eyes fluttering shut for a second before he pulled away.

"I'm just taking Kosmo out for a while, he was getting antsy," Keith said, lifting up one hand in which he was holding a tennis ball. "I wanna teach him to fetch a ball."

"He's not the only one who is antsy, I imagine," Krolia said with a smile. "I thought he didn't have a name yet?"

Keith made a face. "He's started to respond to that stupid name the others gave him. He seems to accept it, so I'll respect that, but that doesn't mean I have to like it."

"Of course not."

"So," Keith started, a bit uncertain, "where're you going? Are you leaving?"

"No," Krolia told him immediately. "I won't leave without saying goodbye, don't worry. I just have something to do, it won't take long. I'll be back in a few vargas."

Keith nodded, clearly relieved although he was trying not to show it too much. He'd really become a lot more open with his emotions over the two years they had spent together. "Can I come? I'm bored to death here."

Krolia eyed him suspiciously. "Did the medics clear you for flying yet?"

Deflating noticeably, Keith admitted, "Not… exactly. But they were talking about piloting the lions, they never said anything about not being allowed to let someone else do the piloting."

For a moment, Krolia was silent, looking at her son who was looking desperate for something to do, then at his wolf sitting next to him with a wagging tail, and back to her son. She sighed. "Alright. But once we return, you are going to rest."

Keith's face brightened at the prospect of not being stuck inside the Garrison with nothing to do all day. "You've got yourself a deal."

Kosmo, now officially named, barked in agreement and teleported all three of them inside one of the jets.

"You still haven't told me where we're going," Keith pointed out once they were both seated and Krolia was flying the jet out of the Garrison grounds.

"Well, now it's going to be a surprise," Krolia told him patiently. "It won't take long, don't worry."

Keith grumbled something under his breath but didn't argue, instead leaning back in his seat with his arms crossed, at least until Kosmo demanded being petted rather forcefully and Keith complied with a quiet laugh.

They spend the rest of the flight in comfortable silence, and once they were getting close to their destination, Keith's eyes sparked with realization.

"...our shack?"

Krolia nodded as she landed the jet safely behind the shack.

"I didn't think… It's still here," Keith said softly. "I guess I was expecting it to be gone, with the empire invading and all- do you think our stuff is still there? Mine and Pop's?"

"Let's find out," Krolia suggested, gently pushing Keith towards the shack with a hand between his shoulder blades.

Taking a deep breath, Keith pushed the door open and stepped inside.

"It all looks exactly like I left it," he said. "A place untouched by the war… I'm glad."

He pulled Krolia to the wall full of pictures, newspaper articles and what must've been Keith's own notes, explaining to her how he'd been trying to figure out where to find the strange energy that eventually turned out to be the Blue Lion.

They talked for a long time, taking turns sharing stories about their time in that shack and with Keith's father, and finally, Krolia found what she had been looking for.

There was a loose board in the floor, she remembered, they had always used it to hide away their valuables, and after she'd been unable to find any pictures in the entire shack, she remembered to check under the floor since she really couldn't imagine Keith's father had thrown them away.

Kneeling down, she lifted the board and pulled out a small box, just big enough for photos. She took them out of the box, just holding them in her hand for a minute until Keith approached from behind.

"What's that?"

"What we came here for."

"What- oh…" Keith trailed off when he saw what she'd found. "Are those… baby pics of me?"

"Not just baby pictures," Krolia corrected, flipping through the photos quickly to show him, "There are also some of you as a toddler and as a small child."

Keith didn't say anything. He just stared at the pictures, then at her.

"Mom, I-"

"I wanted to have photographs of you like the other mothers have of their children, Keith. I may not have been there all those years, but I'd give anything to go back and change that. I can't, though, so I wanted at least something to remind me of that time," Krolia told him quietly.

She looked down, at the photos in her hands, before she placed them carefully inside the box and set it down, standing up and folded Keith up in an embrace.

He relaxed against her readily, resting his head in the crook of her neck and his hands came up to snake around her middle. Even though he had experienced a growth spurt during the two years in the quantum abyss, he was still shorter than her and fit into her arms perfectly. Despite him being an adult by human standards now, hugging him still felt like she was hugging a child, _her_ child, and she would cherish that sensation for the rest of her life.

They stood, unmoving for several minutes before Keith finally pulled away. "Let's stay here tonight. The… the sky is beautiful out in the desert."

"You said you were going to rest tonight," Krolia reprimanded him without really meaning it.

Keith gave her an unimpressed look, one she could not have pulled off any better herself, making her crack a smile. "Alright, we'll stay."

Keith smiled back. "I love you, Mom."

Krolia leaned forward, using one hand to keep the bangs out of his face as she pressed a soft kiss to his forehead. "I love you too."

* * *

Sitting in the sand in front of the shack, wrapped in old blankets, Keith fell asleep against Krolia's side after a few hours, still tired from his concussion and lulled to sleep by the warmth of his mother and the familiarity of the shack they had once lived in.

Kosmo was asleep on his other side, but Krolia kept watch all night, one arm wrapped around her son. In her free hand, she held the photographs, studying each of them to its last detail in the pale moonlight.

* * *

 **I'm not even kidding when I say the relationship between Keith and Krolia is the absolute best thing in all of Voltron to me, and I had such a blast writing this. Krolia really loves her kid y'all.**

 **Hope you enjoyed, as always comments absolutely make, like, my whole life.**

 **Come find me on Twitter as Butterfly_OnIce or on Tumblr as thisfairytalegonebad! And here's the event:** **.com**


End file.
